“If you want to be a successful writer, you need to listen to me. I am a reader. You have to please me.”

“Yes, but, you are telling me to cut sixty per cent of everything.”

“Well, it isn’t any good, is it?”

“I like it.”

“That’s why you have to cut it. These philosophies you write about… I don’t agree with those. They are just wrong.”

“Not philosophies… themes, ideas, theories.”

“Still, they have to go. What you are writing about is horse poop.”

“Couldn’t you find anything to like in my entire story?”

“What does it mean to like something? If you just do what I tell you, people will like what you write. You don’t need all these stupid metaphors and allusions. Write simple things. Acknowledge the hand of God as the creator of everything.”

“People already like what I write. Not everyone wants to hear religious rants all the time.”

“I’m not saying all the time. Just enough to be good for people… to be instructive and up-building.”

“I’d rather tell stories just for fun. I want to write stories that I’d like to read myself.”

“If you do that, then you will be the only one who reads your stories.”

“So you don’t think my story is any good?”

“It’s horse poop.”

“Well, I’m going to write it anyway… the way I want. If it isn’t any good, then maybe I’m no good.”

“I’m not saying that? Why do you have to take it that way?”

“Horse poop is a complement?”

“No, but you have to hear constructive criticism and change it.”

“Sixty per cent isn’t constructive. It’s destructive.”

“Whatever… why did you ask me to read it, anyway? You never listen to me.”